head to head · open source
OpenClaw vs deepchat
OpenClaw has 393,747 GitHub stars, 82,755 forks, 6,671 open issues and last shipped yesterday. deepchat has 6,385 stars, 770 forks, 8 open issues and last shipped yesterday. OpenClaw leads on adoption by 6,067% (393,747 vs 6,385 stars). OpenClaw is written in TypeScript under MIT; deepchat is written in TypeScript under Apache-2.0. OpenClaw has attracted 21% as many forks as stars, deepchat 12%. OpenClaw was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (ai), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| OpenClaw | deepchat | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 394K | ★ 6.4K |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 83K | ⑂ 770 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick OpenClaw if
- You weight community size — 394K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick deepchat if
- You want the deepchat feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and deepchat fits your workflow better
About OpenClaw
OpenClaw 🦞 — Your assistant, on your devices, in your chats OpenClaw is an open source AI assistant that runs on your own computer and meets you in the channels you already use: Discord, iMessage, Slack, Teams, Telegram, WhatsApp, and 20+ more, plus native apps for macOS, iOS, Android, Windows, and Linux. One Gateway runs it as a personal assistant on a laptop or as a shared team deployment; configuration is the only difference. Yours, with no catch. State, memory, and credentials live on your hardware. Models and agent harnesses (Claude, Codex, local models) are plugins you can swap without changing anything…
read the full OpenClaw overview →
About deepchat
DeepChat Open Source Local First AI Agent Desktop Client DeepChat is an open source, local first AI agent desktop client with rich agent capabilities, designed around the Tape.systems philosophy, with support for MCP, Skills, ACP, and remote control integrations for messaging apps. 中文 / English / 日本語 ❤️ Sponsor Thanks to APIMart for sponsoring this project! APIMart is a low cost API platform for AI image & video generation — GPT Image 2 from $0.006/image, 160+ images per dollar. One async API covers both image and video: submit a task, get an ID, fetch results via polling or callback. Batch tens of thousands of…
read the full deepchat overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is OpenClaw or deepchat more popular?
OpenClaw has 393,747 GitHub stars and deepchat has 6,385. OpenClaw has the larger community by that measure.
Are OpenClaw and deepchat free?
Both are open source. OpenClaw is licensed under MIT and deepchat under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between OpenClaw and deepchat?
OpenClaw is written in TypeScript and deepchat in TypeScript. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, OpenClaw or deepchat?
Choose OpenClaw if you want the larger community (393,747 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose deepchat if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.